Zo zis is a Zoat

Keeping on my Space Riders set, next goodie is going to be the Zoat. No big mistery, a huge centaur-like reptilian beast, another relatively easy mini to paint.

At least I hoped that when I was assembling it

 The ephemeral fluff on Zoats wasn't that much complete, though most definitely interesting. Just wandering reptilian members of a enslaved race, servants to the Tyranids and able to conduct some kind of diplomacy with other races in order to determine how they could be better assimilated to the hive mind. Without the Tyranid mind control they are supposed to be skilled psychics and capable of individual thought.

It's a pity that the Tyranids background evolved towards other direction, this was quite an interesting approach. I guess that modern gamers could use just the same way of thought but replacing Tyranids with Tau, that would make sense, I think.

Anyway! Reptilian centauroid. Well... All the Zoats I've ever seen were painted either in painfully bright green either in dragon-like red. I thought I could try a different palette...

But dull colours are not Oldschool!

I went on earthy colours again, just as I did with the Ambull. This time I was thinking more of rhinoceros or crocodiles, that kind of stuff. My first intention was painting the chest and fleshy parts much brighter, in greys scaling up to almost white. But I changed my mind as I realized I wanted the breather, armour and weapon to be cream/white.

Right, white weapons are classy for diplomacy

 Little else to say. Energy was meant to be blue and the rest was just a matter of shades and highlights.

Shades and highlights which, of course, cannot be appreciated in my shitty pics

Yup, a centaur-crocodile-hippopotamus with a plasma arm. Problem?

A pic for scale...

A Zoat and an Ambull walk into a bar and...

 So this is the second round of the project. Now let's see what I grab for the next step!

Playing Epic. Ultramarines vs. Squats

I managed to play an Epic Game. Horaay! I still have my tanks half painted, but my pal KeyanSark offered me the chance to play and, due to our respective schedules, last monday was our only common window of opportunity. So let it happen!

We played NetEpic, a version of the game I am not familiar with, but Keyan is. I used my Ultramarines and a couple of Titans and Keyan used his recently painted Squats.

The battlefield, with objective points all over

Keyan's army

Each turn you roll for the initiative. Each detachment receives an order (first shoot, advance or charge), which is represented by a token, kept secret until you activate the unit. Activation is alternate, so the game is quite fluid; seriously, an IGOUGO system would totally kill a game like this. This is all about adapting youself to the adversary as they move their troops.

Secret orders!

Small blue Rhinos advancing

The clash is imminent

Onwards! To battle!

End of movement phase. Now shooting!

But first, this pic. Just because it's cool.

Keyan's giant cannon shot over me with some pretty devastating effects...

Four infantry units and two Land Raiders just evaporated

The Colossus opened fire against my Rhinos

This pic is just for the dramatic effect

End of turn 1. Let's go for round 2!

Turn 2 would be quite decisive, as we were going to fight for the center of the board.

Remember Jurassic Park, the scene with the glass of water? I think something big is coming...

Oooops, this is gonna be fun...

I made the mistake of not disembarking the troops from the Rhinos. Have a bad feeling about them...

Now for the good stuff... Titans!

Leman Russes shot on my Reaver first, then Keyan's Reaver

You wouldn't expect this game to happen without tables and charts, right?

 My Reaver got an impact on the head and another one on the hip. Fortunately the tech support guys would manage later on to repair both locations and recover all the shields.

General overview of turn 2

The Colossus, the Gyrocopter and the Warlord all opened fire against my infantry...

No comments. Having a bad day

-All of you! Hold the position! Follow me! -Ehh, Brother Captain, it's just us...

Hmm. Bad day to be a Vindicator crew...

Rhinos and Vindicators are wiped out

Seriously, guys, at this distance... you only kill two out of six bikes??

My Warlord (left) shoots the building on the right across the battlefield. Four units killed and the building itself on the edge of collapsing. I love Epic

This town ain't big enough for both of us

Keyan's Reaver managed to destroy my right arm (well, the Reaver's right arm!), so no close combat weapon. I managed to repair the rest of the damage inflicted and recover most of my shields.

End of turn 2!

So Keyan was decimating my ranks! However, at the moment we kept the same number of objetives. Turn 3 would be the decisive one then!!

On my right flank, Squat bikes had surrounded my only Rhino left. All was lost. All? No! Then we heard a 'Vooooosh' 'Vroooom' 'Hshhhhh' Reinforcements had arrived!

Of course I made all those sounds. It's essential to the game.

A little bit crowded suddenly!

This game justifies itself just by pics like this.

 

Keyan just shot me with anything he had. My Titan finally fell down when the reactor core was damaged beyond any reparation (at the end of the turn I made the required roll and at least it didn't explode causing more mayhem!)

 

Dramatic cinematic effects needed

Well, it looks like the battle was pretty much decided. Anyway, this was so much fun!

 

 

We were just for the final combats...o

The Titans and the Thunderhawk melee

Ouuuuch!

The final combat went from this...

 

...to this

So three turns and this was how it looked like in the end!

Pretty different from the first pic!

Well, so this is it. Victory for the Squats! Quite an enjoyable game, I must say, even if Keyan totally overwhelmed me in the end. As you can see, my approach here was totally wrong, I played WH40K instead of Epic, and that lead my troops to the disaster. I guess I played it like an Ork, haha, charging and facing such an artillery oriented adversary. But hey, this was my first game of Epic since... 2000? 2001? And that was with another ruleset, so this actually was my first game.

My main lesson learned is that this is not WH40K; not only about gaming, but about painting and organizing my forces. I had two Codex Astartes Companies and that doesn't work for Epic. Well, if you think that the game was conceived for the Horus Heresy, i.e., not for Chapters, but Legions with such a different organization, that makes much more sense. So I have to repaint some of my infantry to adapt my army to the game. I'm still painting my tanks, so this game helps me to know how to paint them too! (Yes, I'm ashamed of having played with half-painted minis, my bad...)

I'm really excited about games this size, specially after so much time having not played the scale. I'll show you my Space Marines army when finished and then I'll put my hands on my other armies. Hopefully I'll manage to grab some more battles!!

Ambull!

Title says it all! I took part in the Space Riders Kickstarter campaign by most talented Diego Serrate. He really made an outstanding work on bringing RT creatures to life, seriously. All his sculpts instil charm and personality.

My first choice was the Ambull, a dangerous creature native from the rock deserts of Luther McIntyre IX. They can be found on extreme temperatures planets, excavating tunnels for their lairs in the rock.

Free hugs

Looking for that desert ambientation, I chose the bown palette. I used a scorched brown all over (German camo brown by Vallejo) as a base. For the shades I mixed dark green and regal blue:

Looks like a giant mutant coprolite

For the fleshy parts I used beiges instead, so it all kept a colour coherence but you could still see the differences.

Quasimodo? No, doesn't ring a bell

Though I've seen it (the GW original version) painted with some other flashy colours, I rather went on this path, more earthy; it somehow felt right once I begun to paint it.

No, those are not scuba tubes

So this is it, a nice addition to my RT bestiary and a cool concept for scenarios in tunnels or labyrinths.

Humans have tried to tame Ambulls. Not all efforts have been successful

Well, this is the first of the batch. I'll try to have them all painted in the next weeks! :)

Ultraepic!

Going back to Epic again! After the Titans, I felt I needed some regular forces. I remembered I have Space Marines, Orks and Chaos armies, so it was time to do something about them.

First of all, in order to make some plans, I commited myself to see what I had. The Space Marines infantry could hold without any additional work. I have two full Battle Companies.

 

2nd Company Command

 

My original idea back in the day was assembling the whole Ultramarines Chapter, but I left it with a couple of Companies and never got back to it. Anyway, you can see I tried to replicate the Codex Astartes structure. So each Company has six Tactical Squads, two Assault Squads and two Devastator Squads.

 

If you take a close look, Squad numbers on the shoulder pads should be visible

Same goes for Third Company

 

Both Companies, with bikes, speeders and Dreads

 

Besides, I need to base (and eventually repaint) these:

 

Terminators (with Company Command Group)

Scouts and Librarians

 

Apart from this, I have some vehicles, but they all need to be repainted. I'll be bringing them soon too!